No. 1292, April 10, 2025

Suing Over Trump Cuts to Elephant, Rhino Programs

The Center for Biological Diversity just sued the Trump administration over its delay in complying with our request for information on funding cuts to international wildlife conservation.

In February Elon Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency froze grants for elephant research, programs to curb rhino poaching and turtle trafficking, and other campaigns helping endangered species outside the United States. The Center immediately filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking details on the freeze (and any potential justification for it), but we still haven’t gotten a response — and wildlife can’t wait.

“With zero notice or transparency, the Trump administration yanked critical funds for iconic animals many U.S. children dream of seeing in the wild,” said Sarah Uhlemann, international director at the Center. “These incredible creatures may eventually exist only in books unless we fight for them.”

You can fight for them too. Speak up to save beloved Amboseli elephants — the longest-studied elephants in the world — from poaching.

Map: Trump’s Public Land Sales Would Hurt Wildlife

According to a new map analysis by the Center, the Trump administration’s plan to sell off federal public land for sprawl development could bulldoze vital habitat across the West for desert tortoises, Canadian lynx, Pacific martens, and a long list of other imperiled species.

Hundreds of protected lands and waterways, including national monuments, meet the Interior Department’s target criteria to sell roughly 400,000 acres to local governments and private developers.

“It’s appalling that Trump wants to steal these public lands from the public so fat cat developers can build malls, McMansions, and data centers,” said the Center’s Randi Spivak. “No one voted to have their favorite campsite paved over and rare animals driven to extinction.”

Help us defend these lands with a gift to the Future for the Wild Fund — you can still get your donation doubled.

Support the Scientists Calling Out Duke Energy

Last week 61 research scientists signed a letter — organized by the Center and NC WARN — urging North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein to use his executive authority to stop what could be one of the biggest gas buildouts this decade.

The buildout is planned by Duke Energy, the third-largest U.S. corporate climate polluter, which has long blocked local renewable energy solutions. And a recent lawsuit by the town of Carrboro, N.C., says the corporation’s top executives have misled the public for decades about climate science and how its fossil-fuel reliance has hurt people and the planet.

Join the campaign: Urge Gov. Stein to hold Duke Energy accountable and stop it from expanding climate-killing fossil fuels.

Millions Protest Trump, Musk

On Saturday an estimated 3 million people in some 1,400 cities and towns in all 50 U.S. states — with more than 150 groups involved, including the Center — protested the authoritarian, power-grabbing actions of President Donald Trump and political appointee Elon Musk. Rallies were even held in faraway places like London and Paris in solidarity with the American people.

Center staff and supporters attended rallies in numerous places — including Tucson, Arizona; Jacksonville, Florida; and Washington, D.C.

Head to YouTube for some highlights. And stay tuned — more protests are coming up. Let’s take the power back.

Help Save Black-Footed Ferrets on Tribal Lands

The Buffalo Nations Grasslands Alliance is a nonprofit supporting Tribal efforts to save critically endangered black-footed ferrets. These long-bodied little prairie-dog hunters, brought back from near extinction in the 1980s, are still threatened by sylvatic plague across their Great Plains habitat. So the Alliance unites Tribes in crucial work like vaccinating ferrets, monitoring populations, and dusting prairie-dog burrows for plague-spreading fleas.

Now the Trump administration has frozen funds for the group — and the whole black-footed ferret recovery program.

The Buffalo Nations Grasslands Alliance is a great friend of the Center and desperately needs donations to make sure these ferrets don’t disappear from Tribal lands.

Can you chip in?

Revelator: What's Next for These Woodpeckers?

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently reassessed red-cockaded woodpeckers, changing their protection status from “endangered” to the slightly healthier “threatened” to reflect the birds’ growing population and supposedly lower level of risk.

But as journalist Madeline Bodin explores in a new Revelator article, rapid development in the South and the new administration have added some uncertainty to the woodpeckers’ future.

If you don’t already, subscribe to The Revelator’s free weekly e-newsletter for more wildlife and conservation news.

That’s Wild: Penguin Poop Repulses Krill

Antarctic krill are the cornerstone of their ecosystem — tiny, shrimplike crustaceans who are eaten in tremendous volume by whales, seals, and penguins. Adélie penguins, in fact, have a diet that’s over 99% krill. And recent science experiments have shown that krill, when immersed in water containing penguin guano along with the algae they like to eat, avoid the guano like the plague, zigzagging around to get away from it.

Is it just that they object to the guano’s powerful smell — which, one scientist says, sends researchers running? Or are the krill reacting to chemical cues telling them that guano is full of the bodies of their own kind?

Both krill and penguins are in existential peril from climate change and other human-driven forces, of course. Adding insult to injury, a few penguin species — though not Adélies — have even been slapped with new Trump tariffs placed on their home islands (uninhabited by people).

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Photo credits: Savanna elephant by Matthew Luizza/USFWS, black rhino by Richard Ruggiero/USFWS; Pacific marten courtesy USFWS, Canada lynx by Ryan Pennesi/U.S. Forest Service; press conference to hold Duke Energy accountable courtesy Center for Biological Diversity; Hands Off! rally by Elise Bennett/Center for Biological Diversity; black-footed ferret by Ryan Hagerty/USFWS; red-cockaded woodpecker by Dominic Sherony; Antarctic krill by Uwe kils/Wikimedia Commons, penguin by Hannes Grobe/Wikimedia Commons.

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